Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bayh Dole

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March-in-Rights The March-in right is one of the most contentious provisions in Bayh-Dole . It give the federal government the right to grant additional licenses to other "reasonable applicants" or give a license to themselves if they aided the owner of a patent with funding. If march-in rights are used by the government they are required to pay royalties to the patent holder. This is a form a patent protection that not even the federal government can just take away. This right is strictly limited and can only be exercised if the agency determines, following an investigation, that one of four criteria is met :- 1) Action is necessary because the contractor or assignee has not taken, or is not expected to take within a reasonable time, effective …show more content…

Out of these four, the most important of these is a failure by the contractor to take "effective steps to achieve practical application of the subject invention" or a failure to satisfy "health and safety needs" of consumers. Apart from public safety issues, government may exercise this on:- 1) Small business or non-profit which are funded by …show more content…

But for rare occasions, the government’s position is also clear, like when “You have to make a decision between having drugs at a high price and having no drugs at all”. The two major provider of research dollars for the development of such inventive treatments i.e. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) is at the centre of this debate. It is interesting to note that, the NIH has received five such march-in requests and has denied every one. This contention of NIH maintains the stand of the government that the march-in right is not a cost control measure but rather a measure to ensure federally funded inventions being made available to the public. What to do to avoid March-in-Right An individual who is looking to patent an item but does not want to deal with the possibility of march-in rights has to be sure of a few things in order to avoid being subject to